"Phyllis Eisenstein - Island In Lake" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eisenstein Phyllis)

"Stay, too, Taskol. You threshed the grain that made this bread."

Taskol bowed. "I thank you, my lord."

He and the minstrel took places on a bench at one end of the table, and they ate
well of the viands spread before them. From time to time, other leather-clad men
entered the hall, made their obeisances, and sat to the meal, but none of them
stayed long, and none of them wore gold. Alaric recognized one as the guard of
the gate.

Two young serving women cleared the table and set out more ale to signal the end
of dinner. They eyed Alaric curiously but said nothing, only hurried off when
they were done, to a door that stood at a corner of the hall, between two
tapestries. They did not close themselves away behind it, though, but stayed in
the open doorway, looking at him, and other men and women crowded there with
them, half a dozen or more. The castle servants, Alaric thought, waiting for
whatever novelty the stranger was about to provide.

Lord Gazian waved at him to proceed. Pushing his bench away from the table,
Alaric settled the lute on his lap. There was a song he had been working on for
quite some time, and he thought it was ready for singing now--a tale of darkness
for half the year and light for the rest, of blossoms growing from the very ice
at the pole of the world and spawned by seeds fallen from above the sky, from
whose leaves a curing elixir could be made. In the song, a young man fought
storms and monsters and the Northern Sea itself to reach those blossoms, for his
beloved lay ill, and not even the wisest healer knew another way to keep her
from death. When he had won through and saved her, and they had celebrated their
wedding in the final verse, the listeners at the doorway clapped their hands and
chattered among themselves until their lord cast a single dark glance in their
direction.

"A well-sung song," he said, "but I like not the subject matter. Sing of
something real, minstrel."

Alaric almost said that the elixir was real enough, though the monsters were
inventions, but he caught himself and bowed his head. He had no proof, just his
word, and he had learned over the years that it was rarely healthy to contradict
a nobleman, even with proof. He sang another song, a comic one of squabbling
neighbors and stolen sheep, and of a man who was fooled into counting his sheep
three times and reckoning a different number at each. Before he was done, the
folk at the doorway were laughing, and even Lord Gazian himself had smiled a
little.

"You have much skill," he said. "And your songs are...interesting. You could
make your fortune in some large and powerful household, but instead you've come
here to these remote and sparsely peopled lands." He sat forward, leaning his
elbows on the table, the cup of ale between his hands. "What brings you to us,
minstrel?"

Alaric bowed again. "Nothing, my lord, but a boundless desire to see the world